Worlds Largest 4G Network

Feb, 2106
BS Subscriber
~1.1M 4G BSs ~360M 4G Subscribers

~720K@2014 ~90M@2014

Terminal Coverage
Sales volume 210M+
Types 1000+, Price <50$ ~1.2B pop (~86%), Reach Villages

~100M@2014 ~330 Cities@2014

Pg 2 |
5G Era: Rethink
Green Communication Research
Fundamentals Center established in Oct. 2011,
initiated 5G Key Tech R&D.

Green To start a green journey of wireless systems

For no more cells

To make network application/load aware

Soft To make BS invisible

To enable wireless signal to dress for the

occasion

To enable Soft RAN via

Super Fast NGFI

To enable flexible configuration of diversified access points

and optimal baseband function split between BBU pool &
RRS
Towards Green & Soft: A 5G Perspective IEEE Comm. Ma
 5G New Requirements

Immersive
Seamless

Tactile Ultra Dense

Massive
Ultra Reliable

Seamless Coverage, Hot Spot High Capacity, Low-power Massive-connection, Low-latency

Ultra-reliable

Pg 4 | New design principles, new key

technologies,
E2E 5G System Key Technologies
Green and Soft

Core Network SDN/NFV

PTN Transportation PON

network

SDAI (enabled by MCD)

RAN

Seamless wide-area Hotspot & Low-power & Low-latency &

coverage high data rate massive-connections high-reliability
 User Centric RAN (UCN): C-RAN a key
enabler
Service
Awareness
Autonomous CN-RAN
Network
Repartition

Network Slice Localized data,

Turbo Charged service & forwarding
as a Service
Edge

Unified Access &

RAN restructure
Seamless Mobility

Multi-Connectivity &
Flexible Topology

Pg 6 | Framework of radio access network

 Fronthaul challenges surfaced with
C-RAN (2011)
C-RAN CMCC has conducted extensive trials to

seek cost-effecitive FH solutions in LTE

Centralized Control and/or
Processing era
Collaborative Radio
Real-Time Cloud
Distributed
Clean System Target BTS
Distributed BTS

Traditional
Traditional BTS
BTS

Fronthaul used to be an issue for LTE C-RAN:

CPRI Compression and WDM
Pg 7 |
 Traditional FH solutions must be
revisited in 5G era

Pg 8 |
 NGFI (xHaul)

The key to achieve FH interface redesign lies in the

function re-split b/w BBU and RRU
The new NGFI will further lead to re-design of underlined
transport networks with packet switching capability
Pg 9 |
 Decoupling Ant./Non-ant. Related
Processing
The evaluation of the existing FH
Interface (CPRI, OBSAI):
The FH bandwidth is proportional to
the number of antennas.
The FH bandwidth is at least 2 orders
of magnitude higher than BH bandwidth.
Considering the C-RAN centralized deployment and the
technologies of 5G, FH is facing a bandwidth explosion.
Decoupling antenna/non-antenna related
The number of Carriers
in C-RAN
The number of
antennas
FH BW based on the
existing FH Interface
processing:
It is proposed that antenna related functions
100 8 1Tbps should be moved from the BBU to the RRH.
FH bandwidth will decrease significantly if the
100 128 16Tbps
BBU/RRH function split can decouple the non-
Pg 10 | antenna related processing and the antenna
 Decoupling cell/UE Processing
The existing FH interface is a constant bit rate interface, which is load
independent and does not match with the features of mobile traffic.

Decoupling cell/UE processing:

Cell processing is irrelevant to traffic load and is fixed no matter how many UEs are
active.
FH bandwidth will be lower and load dependent.
In C-RAN Mode, cell/UE processing decoupling can further help reduce power
consumption.
Pg 11 | When the traffic load is low, part of C-RAN cloud resource can be shut down.
When there is no active UE, BBU software can be switched to a dormant state
 Decoupling UL/DL Processing
Some symmetrical BBU-RRU function
re-split solutions
Taking LTE as an example
Pg 12 |
There are many different aspects
between UL and DL:
Generally, the DL rate is not equal to the
UL rate.
The bandwidth of UL and DL are not
always in the same order of magnitude.
The bit width of UL is usually larger than
that of the DL.
Decoupling UL/DL processing
NGFI design should take into account
the asymmetrical function split solutions.
For example, the function split solution 3
could be used for UL while the solution 4
used for DL.
 NGFI Progress
Lead of IEEE 1914 (NGFI) WG in IEEE
1st NGFI WS held & NGFI WP released in June, 2015
- MoU signing with Broadcom, Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, HuaWei,
ZTE,
Nokia, Xilinx & Altera
Co-founder of IEEE 1904.3
Leading the project of NGFI in CCSA
NGFI as the key component in NGMN 5G WP, FuTURE 5G
WP
NGFI/FH promotion
Rethink and
Fronthaul forstudy in ITU-T,
Soft RAN, IEEE and
IEEE Comm. Mag. 3GPP
2015
NGFINGFI,
Paper inxHaul,
The IEEE Communication
GLOBECOM 2015 Magazine &
GLOBECOM 2015

White Paper on NGFI released in June

NGFI feasibility study with Xilinx
Pg 13 | 2015
 Challenges Ahead
Mapping of FH to Ethernet packet, undergoing in IEEE 1904 WG
Stage 1: CPRI encapsulation (applicable to 2G, 3G and 4G)
Stage 2: NGFI encapsulation for 5G
Latency
To meet RT requirement of wireless communication
Limited latency budget for FH (e.g. 250us defined in NGMN
for LTE C-RAN)
Synchronization
LTE Frequency sync. of 0.05ppm & phase accuracy of +/-
1.5us
Higher in 5G
Transport of FH packets
Over IP, MPLS, etc.
E2E QoS
O&M, protection etc.
Pg 14 |
 IEEE NGFI (1914) WG
Target: efficient & scalable 7 Founding members
FH for 5G
Officially approved: Feb.
2016
Sponsor: IEEE COM/SDB
7 founding companies with
more than 50 subscribers
so far from ~30 companies
Scope of 1914.1 project:
- NGFI transport network
architecture
- Requirements
- Function split analysis
for LTE
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1
914/
The first NGFI WG meeting, April
Pg 15 | 25-28, San Jose, CA
Contact: huangjinri@chinamobile.com
 Thank you
For more information, please contact
icl@chinamobile.com

Pg 16 |